22 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



amount of hired labor. I have expended fifty dollars for lime, 

 Bait, and bone dust. I have found lime very good for corn, and 

 as a top-dressing for grass. I used a mixture of two parts lime, 

 two of plaster, and one of bone dust, for potatoes — putting 

 a handful in the hill at the time of planting. I left four 

 rows in the middle of the field without the mixture. These 

 rows were hardly worth the digging, while the remainder, for 

 this year, were very good. I have tried subsoil ploughing, 

 but cannot, as yet, see any good result from it ; still, I shall 

 try it yet again. I practice turning up a part of my mowing 

 land, each year, in August, and -give it a dressing of fifteen 

 loads of compost manure to the acre, and sow one-half bushel 

 of herds-grass seed and one bushel of redtop seed to the acre. 

 I have mowed the past season, two tons to the acre, where last 

 year, it was hardly worth the mowing. I ploughed it in August, 

 1852, and put on a dressing of lime and ashes, and sowed it 

 with herds-grass and redtop seed. 



Hadley, Nov. 22, 1853. 



Statement of Josiah Allis. 



In compliance with the rules of your society, I beg leave to 

 submit the following statement : — 



My farm is situated in the easterly part of the town of 

 Whately, containing about ninety-five acres of land. I made my 

 first purchase there, in 1826. It had been used for growing 

 rye and corn, and some hay, for years before ; and some six 

 years after, as a piece of out-land, and all the crops were 

 carried off from the farm. I moved on to it in 1832, and com- 

 menced, in a small degree, to improve it. At that time, I could 

 not keep more tlian from six to eight cattle upon it through 

 the winter. In 1836, I attempted to raise a crop of teazles 

 upon it. I had found, at that time, a spot on the farm large 

 enough to raise the plants to stock two or three acres ; but 

 not having land on my farm good enough to set the plants, I 

 hired of Mr. Moses Stebbins, of South Deerficld, some two 

 acres of his fine, rich, alluvial soil, at the rate, I think, of about 

 twenty or twenty-five dollars per acre, and we grew a fine 

 crop upon it. Not being satisfied with hiring land at that 



